A Slovenly Mess

An exceedingly well-considered (and well-written) review posted by "Richard W" over at criterionforum.org The writer does a marvelous job comparing the original with the re-make (Cigar Joe, take note):

Quote

The original 3:10 TO YUMA (Columbia, 1957) is a plaintive outlaw ballad that unfolds like a chamber play. I like its simplicity, the time it takes to layer a story and flesh out characters. The motivations are personal. It's about real things that can make or break a man -- like saving your livestock from dying in a drought, being a good role model to your kids, living up to your wife's expectations, putting food on the table, paying the bills, persevering through adversity, taking a risk, and doing the right thing in the face of all the temptations to do wrong. If the rancher Dan Evans stumbles just once, if he takes the easier path, he'll be no different than the killer Ben Wade he's escorting to prison. Evans is really tempted, too, because Wade knows how to tempt him. These two men are opposite sides of the same coin, and they recognize each other as such. The moral dilemma and temptation to sell out is carefully sustained right up to the closing moments giving the film a depth and emotional resonance few westerns can match.

There are many understated moments that draw us into the film and involve us in the characters. When Alice Evans looks at her husband, her expression is an accusation and a disappointment, even though her words deny it. When the sheriff organizes a posse, one woman refuses to wake up her husband, who is sleeping off a drunk, knowing that he's foolish enough to join the posse and get himself killed. Watch how Ben Wade seduces the achingly lonely saloon girl, stuck in a dusty old town for the rest of her life if someone doesn't take her away from there. She'd follow Ben Wade anywhere, even though he gets the color of her eyes wrong. Instead, she opens the coach door that will take him to the train, her head nodding in agreement to his hollow promises while her expression is one of profound resignation.

3:10 TO YUMA represents the best that the American western can achieve in the hands of film makers who know how. It is Delmar Daves best film, and one of the great westerns of the 1950s (that's saying a lot). No silly premise, no slap-happy gunfights, no trick shooting, no contrivance or artifice, just down-to-earth grit. The two leads -- Van Heflin and Glen Ford -- play off each other's similarities, sounding out weaknesses and strengths in quiet competition. Heflin seems to inhabit his worried rancher like a tailored suit of clothes, a simple man who works hard, hopes for the best, and has a lot to prove to his family. Glen Ford's ingratiating performance as the killer outlaw is as much a revelation as Henry Fonda's villain in Once Upon A Time In the West.

A remake has to find new avenues within the story so it won't be a carbon copy. I understand that, and I welcome a fresh approach, but I had hoped for a more disciplined and insightful script. The new version throws in a kitchen sink's worth of political correctness masquerading as subtext. The scenes it has in common with the original shrivel in comparison, especially in the interaction with women characters who are marginalized before dropping out of the film completely. Unfortunately, the new material is no improvement. While the journey from Contention to Bisbee is prolonged, with two camping scenes and altercations first with bloodthirsty Indians and then with bloodthirsty miners, seems like one irrelevant distraction after another has been substituted for the main conflict between the posses and the outlaws. There's is no logical reason for every supporting and background character to be a vicious opportunist eager to kill the posse for money. They are well-matched to Ben Wade gang of outlaws, who are extreme sadists more in the tradition of spaghetti westerns than the American western. Worse, the twists and turns in the last few minutes violate the story's own logic and are not believable.

Whoever is responsible for deconstructing Dan Evans did not think through all the neurotic changes made to the character. Instead of being a stoic rancher, Evans is a chronic whiner who lost a leg in the Civil War, shifting the emphasis from a morality dilemma to a plea for sympathy. He thinks of himself as a failure because the war never gave him the chance to be a hero. How believable is it for a man who is missing one leg to jump off buildings, run, fall, roll and get up as easily as if he had two legs? At first we are asked to sympathize and excuse his failings because of his handicap, and then he performs like an acrobat. In his last moments, Dan Evans is pathetic, a beggar, and a failure whom the outlaw feels sorry for. In making the male lead politically correct to appease the skirts in Hollywood and the men who wear them, the remake dumbs down the story and diminishes its poignancy. This is my strongest objection, and it's a big one.

The original film provides romance that can be eroticized, suspense that can be intensified, action that can be prolonged, and internal tensions that can be probed by ensemble acting. But the remake is badly misdirected by James Mangold who blows every opportunity to improve and elaborate. His errors in judgment begin with the tone and attitude of the piece. There are no highs and lows here. Every moment is played at full throttle, proclaiming its self-importance. There are no gentle or amiable people: even the smallest part is played for aggression. There are no quiet interludes: when the action lets up, there is still plenty of noise. The original doesn't seem dated because of its dramatic minimalism. The audience is allowed to participate in those pregnant silences. In the remake, Mangold makes certain there are no pregnant silences.

One of the great pleasures of the western genre is its attention to portraiture and landscape. But don't look for horsemen riding across pictorial vistas to establish a sense of how men relate to the landscape. There are no wide angles in this western. The Bonanza Creek Ranch is one of the prettiest locations in New Mexico, but Mangold relegates scenery to a blurry backdrop for talking heads -- or cussing, threatening heads. How can the western landscape be a presence in a film assembled almost entirely in mediums and tights? With the camera that close, there is no reason to be racking focus in the middle of a shot all the time. I've never seen a feature film with so many shallow depth and rack-focus shots. There's a way to group people so that the eye is led into the frame toward what's important, but Mangold's crowd shots are just chaotic, and sometimes, so are his groupings of twos and threes. Although the cutting is faster and the angles are closer, there is considerably less going on in the remake than in the original.

I expected costumes, props, and accoutrements to be accurate to the period and sensible to the circumstances. Forget it. Ben Wade and his sidekick wear outfits on the silly side of historical inaccuracy. There are many similar offenses. After the high standard for accuracy established by TOMBSTONE (1993) and subsequent westerns, the remake of 3:10 TO YUMA is a regression.

The American west was full of immigrants, so I welcome foreign actors with foreign accents playing westerners. But I do wish these new versions of the characters were not so one-dimensional and neurotic. Female characters are dismissed as quickly as possible. Russell Crowe was a good choice for Ben Wade. He has the sneaky charm that the character requires. Christian Bale is one of the most talented actors working today, but his Dan Evans shrivels up compared to Van Heflin's. It is partly the writing and partly the actor that undermines the emotional center of this remake. Bale gives his all, but he is miscast. The part demands an American actor whose stoic presence reflects a feel for the period and the life, the time and the place, someone like Tommy Lee Jones or Kevin Costner or Sam Elliott or Powers Boothe or Chris Cooper or even the excellent Thomas Haden Church (star of the recent BROKEN TRAIL). With a different actor, this remake would be a much better film, and its flaws would be easier to overlook.

Perhaps 3:10 TO YUMA was the wrong classic to remake for today's audience. The original is a character driven suspense drama that achieves eloquence through dramatic minimalism. The remake cuts to another angle every 3 seconds, stepping on its own beats and never allowing the audience to feel the moment. Nevertheless, Mangold was wise to keep the story, such as it is, up close, fast, and bombastic. The audience had a good time with the over-the-top spaghetti western violence and non-stop action. Audiences are not critical if they are exposed to a lot of action, and this remake has action.

If the box-office success of this slovenly mess helps to get more westerns financed and distributed in cinemas, it will serve a good purpose. Personally, I could not be more disappointed. Let's hope the next western gets a better script and a director who comprehends the genre he's working in.

Richard W
(who lived 18 years in southern Arizona situated between Contention and Yuma)